Pets are a welcome addition to many households around the world. But no matter how much you love and care for them, they can encounter fleas or ticks. These pests are the ultimate nuisance for any pet owner.


Fleas are minute parasitic insects that need blood from their hosts to survive. These nuisance pests can leap up to six inches in a single bound. Despite its size, it can eat up to 15 times its body weight in the host’s blood. Some species of flea feed on both animals and humans. They are common in areas with a warm, humid climate. In cold weather, they survive by making their way indoors to your house.


Ticks are similar in that they are minute hematophagy creatures. They are arachnids, unlike fleas that are insects. They also thrive in areas with warm, humid climates. Unlike fleas, they cannot leap great distances. Instead, they jump onto your pets from a blade of grass.
 

The Advantage of Parasite Prevention

 

• Prevent Pet Diseases

Among the primary reasons you protect your pets from ticks and fleas is to prevent them from contracting diseases. These pests spread several diseases as they suckle their host’s blood. Fleas can transmit diseases like bartonellosis, murine typhus, salmonellosis, tularemia, and hemoplasmosis. Ticks can spread hepatozoonosis, ehrlichiosis, cytauxzoonosis, anaplasmosis, tularemia, and rickettsiosis.
 

• Avoid Uncomfortable Symptoms in Pets

Apart from spreading pathogens, fleas and ticks can cause anemia. They cause excessive itching that leads to skin infections in your household pets. Their saliva makes some dogs develop allergies that can result in a rash. They also transmit bacterial pathogens and tapeworms that lodge in the pet’s small intestines.
 

• Effects on Humans

The advantages of protecting pets from ticks and fleas extend to you. Finding these pests all over your house and getting bites from them does not make a happy pet owner. Fleas and ticks from your pets are also dangerous to you.


A bite from them can cause zoonotic diseases like tick-borne disease, the plague, and Lyme disease. These diseases may not only affect you but your family as well. To be safe, avoid touching the tick’s blood when you remove it from your pet.
 

• Avoid Home Infestation

Ticks and fleas are fond of warm and grassy areas. When they invade your home, they will thrive there. They will hide and reproduce in the curtains, furniture, rugs, and in the cracks and crevices that are hard to reach. An adequate flea and tick control program can eliminate pests and prevent consecutive infestations.
 

• Prevention Is Always Better Than Treatment

Once you own a pet, make tick and flea prevention a part of its routine veterinary checkup. During the exam, veterinarians may check your pet for ticks and fleas. Any sign of the pests requires a swift response.


Your vet can recommend a course of treatment specific to your pet’s age, breed, and health concerns. Make inquiries about other preventive measures from them to ensure your pet stays healthy and happy. Domestic pets can take some medication orally in the form of tablets that can kill fleas in 30 minutes.


For more on flea or tick prevention in pets, call Loan Oak Animal Clinic at (270) 554-0385 to reach our office in Paducah, Kentucky.